


Do you believe in magic?

by queenofchildren



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you doing?“ Clarke’s voice sounds so shrill that she barely recognizes it as her own.</p><p>“I am drinking whatever weird cocktail you and O cooked up before you can add alcohol and get drunk in my house. Do I need to remind you that you're both not allowed to drink yet?“</p><p>His voice is getting progressively louder, in a way that would effectively alert Clarke that her and Octavia are in deep shit if, well, if she didn’t already know that from the fact that Bellamy Blake is holding the bottle of personalized Clarke Griffin love potion. Which is empty. Because he drank it. All of it.</p><p>or: Clarke makes a love potion for Lexa and Bellamy unknowingly drinks it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Take a sip of my secret potion,_

_I’ll make you fall in love._

_For a spell that can’t be broken,_

_One drop should be enough._

 

“This is the stupidest idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

Clarke is sitting in her best friend’s kitchen, looking back and forth between the mottled pages of an old leatherbound book and Octavia’s excited face.

“It’s also the only idea you haven’t tried yet.”

As much as Clarke hates to admit it, her friend is not wrong. She has in fact tried absolutely everything to get Lexa’s attention, from sending her longing looks to letting herself get thrown into detention together with the rebellious and impossibly cool girl she has been crushing on for ages, to straight-up bumping into her in the hallway and dropping her books – to no avail. Lexa just stepped over Clarke’s scattered belongings and walked on without so much as a second glance; she didn’t even show up for the detention, which Clarke set a roll of toilet paper on fire to be sent to, and her longing looks may as well have been directed at a wall. Lexa, it seems, is simply not interested in nerdy, rule-abiding, somewhat awkward girls.

So this is her last resort, and if it fails, Clarke has sworn to herself, she will move on and stop pining after Lexa once and for all. She’s not exactly optimistic about the outcome of their little experiment, though.

“But a  _love potion_?”

Octavia shrugs. “It worked for me and Lincoln.”

Clarke refrains from pointing out that O’s boyfriend was already head over heels the first moment he laid eyes on Octavia, because her friend has been getting pretty into this whole “white magic” stuff recently and Clarke doesn’t have the heart to tell her that in her opinion it’s all a load of crock.

Sighing, she pulls the book closer and starts reading the page Octavia has already bookmarked. She doesn’t get past the first few lines before crinkling her nose in disgust.

“Are you sure this is at all sanitary?”

Octavia shrugs. “It’s not like you won’t be exchanging spit anyway, if it works.”

Clarke shudders but reads on quickly. Apart from the part where she has to spit into the potion to make sure it is actually  _her_ the potion’s recipient ends up falling in love with, the rest isn’t so bad – it’s mostly pretty common garden herbs, some spices and a base of goat’s milk, all of which Octavia has already provided.

“Alright then. Start cooking, o witchy one.”

“Not so fast. First, you have to take off all your clothes.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’ll be more connected to nature in your natural state.” Octavia’s exasperated tone suggests that this is the most obvious thing in the world.

“Being naked is  _not_  my natural state. I’m way too pale for that, I’d have a permanent sunburn.”

Octavia rolls her eyes but relents and starts unpacking the ingredients from her basket. Clarke is glad O doesn’t insist on the “no clothes”-rule, because there’s no way she is going to stand around naked in the Blakes’ kitchen and risk being caught in her birthday suit by O’s brother Bellamy.

Bellamy Blake has already made teasing her into an art form, there’s no need to give him any more ammunition. Not to mention he is practically shaped like a Greek god, whereas Clarke’s  proportions, in her own opinion, are much less divine. She shakes off thoughts of Bellamy’s marble statue abs and watches Octavia pour the goat’s milk into a mixing bowl. 

“Alright, if you’re not going to get undressed, you might as well move on to the next step.”

The next step, it turns out, is saying an incantation over a kitchen knife while holding it up to the full moon – the reason they are doing this today – before using it to cut up the ingredients. Clarke does this with no complaining but a reasonable amount of skepticism, and from that point on, making a love potion is very much like cooking: Measuring out and cutting up ingredients, mixing them together and heating them on the stove. The only weird part is when she has to spit in the pot, to “personalize” the potion, so to speak, and after she does, Clarke insists on letting the thick, goopy fluid boil for a few minutes just to make sure none of her oral bacteria can possibly survive.

Once the liquid has cooled down, Octavia fills it into a small brown bottle before they move on to the last part of the ritual: Taking a thimble full of the finished mixture outside and pouring it out under an apple tree while repeating the incantation. Luckily, the Blakes’ garden boasts an apple tree and Octavia came well prepared with a copper thimble, so the ritual is finished in no time.

While Octavia does some kind of additional incantation for good measure, Clarke returns inside the house, shivering in the cold fall air and thoroughly unimpressed by her first foray into the ancient practice of witchcraft.

The chill on her skin is nothing compared to the cold dread that grips her when she enters the kitchen to see Bellamy standing there, his head thrown back as he downs the last of what Clarke identifies as their potion.  _Her_  potion, spit and all.

“What are you doing?“ Clarke’s voice sounds so shrill that she barely recognizes it as her own.

“I am drinking whatever weird cocktail you and O cooked up before you can add alcohol and get drunk in my house. Do I need to remind you that you're both not allowed to drink yet?“

His voice is getting progressively louder, in a way that would effectively alert Clarke that her and Octavia are in deep shit if, well, if she didn’t already know that from the fact that Bellamy Blake is holding the bottle of personalized Clarke Griffin love potion. Which is empty. Because he drank it. All of it.

It is at this point that her brain short-circuits, unwilling to even imagine the consequences of this development.

Octavia barrels into her from behind at that very moment.

“What are you standing around her for? Let’s celebrate and figure out how to make Lexa….“ Octavia abruptly stops talking, which means she must have spotted her very angry brother standing over the mess they’ve made of the kitchen and holding the small brown bottle. Which is empty, Clarke can only mentally repeat to herself, unsure if the information has really registered in her brain yet.

“Where did you hide the booze Octavia?”

“What booze?” Octavia’s faux-innocent voice is so transparent that Clarke rolls her eyes – only to see Bellamy doing the same thing.

“You’re not fooling anyone, O. Clearly, this mess” he gestures at the ingredients littering the table, the empty mixing bowl and dirty pot smeared with the rest of their concoction, “is your way of preparing for a night of drunken debauchery, and I won’t let you get away with it. So go get whatever alcohol you’ve stashed away and hand it over.”

 _Drunken debauchery?_  Clarke internally giggles at the word choice. He must have just come back from his book club, a weekly affair where he reads and discusses classic novels with a bunch of fellow historians. His already eloquent speech is always particularly refined when he comes back from those meetings, and Clarke always enjoys teasing him about it. Deep down, however, she has to admit she likes the way he talks – it’s different from the dudebro-slang of her classmates, and it’s intriguingly at odds with his physical appearance, which doesn’t really scream “giant history nerd”. At all.

“But Bell, we really weren’t drinking. We were just going to…”

Half out of instinct, Clarke steps on Octavia’s foot, hard, in the hopes of shutting her up. O can’t possibly even think of telling Bellamy what they were actually doing. Clarke, who usually prides herself on her rational, scientific mindset, would be absolutely mortified. They’ll just have to give up the bottle of vodka hidden behind O’s bed.

Luckily, Octavia understands and stomps out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving Clarke and Bellamy behind in awkward silence.

“I take it this wasn’t your idea?”

“What?”

“The drinking.”

“Oh.” Well, they weren’t actually drinking, but if they had been, it would have been most certainly O’s idea. “No, it was. My idea. Octavia had nothing to do with it.”

Bellamy looks skeptical but nods. Clarke notices now how tired he looks, and wonders how often he’s had enough sleep this week – most nights, he stays up late to prepare his classes, which he doesn’t really have time for during the day because his TA salary is not nearly enough to support himself and Octavia, and now Clarke feels bad for causing him to worry even more about his sister’s wild antics. He has been raising her alone ever since their mother died a few years back, and Clarke has to admit he’s been doing a pretty decent job. Octavia may be wild and occasionally temperamental, but she’s also the kindest, bravest, most generous person Clarke knows, and Clarke suspects this is in large part due to Bellamy’s unconditional love. Clarke may not always get along with him, but she can’t ever accuse him of not trying his best when it comes to his sister. (Case in point: drinking a dubious-looking potion that must have tasted absolutely disgusting just so his sister can’t get drunk and get in trouble. Not that Octavia isn’t fully capable of getting in trouble sober, as Clarke remembers well from the bloodbath that was her eighteenth birthday.)

“We weren’t going to get blackout drunk or anything, you know. Just testing a few cocktail recipes. Very mild ones.”

There, that should explain the state of the kitchen and the questionable mixture they came up with.

“Judging by what I just drank, the two of you should definitely not aim for a career in bartending.” He looks down at the empty bottle before him and shudders. “That stuff was disgusting.”

“Then why did you drink it all?” The words come out sharper than Clarke intended, betraying her frustration with the way the evening turned out, and Bellamy looks startled for a moment before he breaks into a grin.

“Why, for no other reason than to spite you, Princess.”

Clarke huffs but doesn’t get around to responding because Octavia returns quickly after, angrily and reluctantly holding out the small bottle of cheap vodka they were saving for a special occasion.

Bellamy nods solemly before opening the bottle and pouring it all down the drain under Octavia’s loud protests – they had to pay Murphy a handsome bonus to buy it for them with his fake ID.

“There, no underage drinking for you.”

“You are such an ass when you try to parent.”

Ignoring his sister’s complaint, Bellamy ruffles her hair once before grabbing his briefcase and striding out of the kitchen, winking at Clarke smugly as he passes her.

For a fleeting moment, Clarke wishes that Octavia’s stupid potion would actually work, just to see that smirk wiped off his face. But then rational thought sets in again and she realizes it is much more likely that it’s not his heart that will suffer from this but his health in general. Hell, she’s not even entirely sure what exactly O mixed into the concoction, but whatever it is, it is highly concentrated. The book said to use a thimble full of it mixed in with the person’s drink to mask its taste, so clearly, the suggested dosis is much, much smaller than what Bellamy just had. What if there are side effects, Clarke wonders with rising panic, and now she isn’t just worried about her dignity anymore, she also fears for Bellamy’s safety.

Octavia seems much less concerned about her brother’s wellbeing right now, angrily cleaning up the kitchen while making as much noise as possible, and Clarke suspects that over her fight with Bellamy, her friend has already forgotten the real problem here.

“What do we do now?”

“About what?”

“About your brother? Drinking the stupid love potion? What if he actually falls in love with me now?”

Octavia freezes mid-movement to stare at Clarke.

“Don’t tell me now you suddenly believe the potion works?”

Clarke shrugs. “I just don’t want to have your stupid brother following me around like a lovesick puppy.”

Inexplicably, that causes her friend to smirk. Clarke wants to ask what she could possibly be smiling about, but Octavia quickly changes the topic.

“Look at the bright side: at least you kept your clothes on.“ And then Octavia actually has the nerve to giggle, as if Clarke hadn’t just potentially accidentally bewitched her brother to fall in love with her.

But even as she thinks this, it strikes her how very very absurd this whole situation is, and she joins in her friend’s laughter. Within seconds, they’re doubled over laughing at the absurdity of it all.

It is only much later, lying on the guest mattress next to Octavia’s bed and listening to her friend’s soft snores, that Clarke notices that, despite the initial goal of the evening’s activites, she has barely spared Lexa more than a fleeting thought all night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

> _Boy, you belong to me,  
>  I got the recipe  
> And it’s called black magic_

Two weeks after Bellamy Blake accidentally drinks a magic potion that was intended to make someone else fall in love with her, Clarke can no longer laugh about the whole thing. Because no matter how often she tells herself that Octavia may be many things but she’s not actually a witch because  _magic is not actually a thing,_ the fact is that Bellamy has been acting really, really weird since that evening, and there are only two possible explanations: A) Clarke is going crazy, or B) the stupid love potion actually worked.

Clarke feels like an idiot for even considering the possibility, fully aware of how ludicrous it is. But since she’s also not happy just accepting her own mental decline, and since she considers herself a woman of reason, Clarke decides to observe and analyze the situation first.

Over the weeks following what she has deemed “the incident”, Clarke observes the following notable, indisputable changes in Bellamy’s behaviour:

1\. A sudden marked decrease in teasing remarks and arrogant smirks and general infuriatingness, coupled with a strong increase in attention, eye contact and smiles – soft, slow, private smiles that Bellamy suddenly directs at her and that have the odd effect of making her feel like they’re the only two people in the room, or possibly the world.

2\. A shift in his body language, which Clarke has taken to observing very attentively (without admitting that she’s secretly happy to have an excuse to stare at him). He has taken to standing just a little bit closer to her than he used to, leaning over her shoulder to peer at something she’s drawing, letting his fingertips linger on her skin when he hands her something at the dinner table, resting his palm on her lower back when he moves past her in the narrow hallway.

3\. The fact that he suddenly starts politely inviting Clarke to stay for dinner, which is weird because she stays over at least three times a week anyway when her mother is at the hospital, and normally he just silently accepts her presence at the table. But now he’s all “Are you staying for dinner Clarke? We’d love to have you over,” and it’s just one more thing that confuses the hell out of her.

Now, granted, all of those things by themselves would not be very suspicious. But put together, they’re downright damning. And in addition to all those strong and observable trends, there are strange little moments, like when she walks into the kitchen to find Bellamy preparing risotto that smells absolutely divine, and when she asks what’s in it, he holds the spoon up to her lips and tells her to taste. Which is not weird  _per se_ , but the way he watches her clean off the spoon and then gently wipes a bit of sauce from the corner of her mouth when she’s done turns the harmless gesture into a strangely intimate one, and Clarke is actually relieved to hear Octavia thundering down the stairs to greet her.

Something is definitely going on. ( _“Something wicked”_ , Clarke’s mind supplies in a voice that sounds suspiciously like a very amused Octavia.)

Once it is established that she is not, in fact, imagining this weird parallel-universe Bellamy who is suddenly sweet and charming and considerate, Clarke moves on to trying to find an explanation, any explanation, for this odd development (other than the unthinkable). Her theories are as follows:

Theory one: He could be feeling bad about being so strict and confiscating their vodka the night they made the potion, and this is his way of making up for it. But if that was the case, he could have just said so and given back the vodka, right? Granted, Bellamy is stubborn as a mule and not a big fan of admitting when he’s wrong, but it’s still not a very solid theory.

Theory number two posits that he could be overworked and exhausted and that he’s simply too tired to be annoying. Which is not very likely either, because if there’s one thing that just comes naturally to Bellamy Blake, it’s being annoying.

Theory number three seems more plausible: He could be in love. Not with Clarke, obviously, but he could have a new girlfriend, someone who makes him so ridiculously happy that part of that happiness sort of bubbles over and leaks into his interactions with his little sister’s nerdy friend. It is hands down the most believable idea she’s come up with so far, and yet something in Clarke hates the thought that all those butterfly-inducing smiles he’s sending her way are caused by and meant for someone else. Luckily, before Clarke is forced to wonder why exactly the thought bothers her, Octavia mentions something about Bellamy needing to get a date for a colleague’s wedding, thus disproving theory number three.

So she’s back to the potion as the explanation behind Bellamy’s actions, except now the idea that she may have honest-to-God  _bewitched_  someone is not Clarke’s only problem anymore. The real problem, she realizes with a shock, is that she is starting to  _like_  it. She’s starting to get used to the smiling and the nice gestures and the casual physical contact, and not just because she’s been unhappily pining for so long now that she kind of forgot what it felt like to have someone actually look at her instead of ignoring her. And now that she’s been reminded, it’s getting harder and harder to steel herself against it, to avoid Bellamy or brush him off and flee when he asks her how her day was or asks if she’s staying for dinner with a look that says he’d like nothing more. She wonders if his eyes have always been this expressive and she simply never noticed it before, or if this new intensity in them is somehow connected to her disastrous experiment too – and if so, whether she’ll miss it when things go back to normal. Because as unsettling it is to be looked at like that, it is also strangely exhilarating, and whenever Bellamy looks at her, or touches her in one of those seemingly innocent ways, Clarke feels like there’s a fire in her veins that could burn down the world.

Which is bad, obviously, even though Clarke has to actively remind herself why exactly the fact that Bellamy Blake may be in love with her is a bad thing. Which it obviously is: He’s her best friend’s brother, whom she has known since she met Octavia on her first day of middle school and the two girls formed an unlikely friendship. Who used to tease her about everything from her questionable pre-teen fashion choices to her love for processed foods to her penchant for reading medical textbooks and drawing on everything that doesn’t move (and sometimes on Octavia who sleeps like a stone). Who opened the Blakes’ house to her after her father’s death turned her already too big, too cold house into even less of a home; who gave her a family when she needed one.

And who did not, she reminds herself with a growing inexplicable ache somewhere between her heart and her gut, choose to be in this situation.

But despite all those rational arguments, having Bellamy treat her like someone he could actually be romantically interested in sure doesn’t  _feel_  bad. On the contrary, it feels very good, and very confusing.

And that’s when the incident with the pancakes happens.

* * *

It’s Octavia’s birthday, and Octavia loves pancakes – for all her tendency to lecture Clarke on the advantages of a healthy, balanced diet, O would probably eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So today, on her birthday, Clarke has decided that her best friend is getting fresh pancakes.

Clarke has stayed over at the Blakes’ the night before, and since she’s an early riser and Octavia is not, it is no problem to get up at seven, take a quick shower and sneak down to the kitchen to get started. Clarke has looked up several recipes the day before, but she has never actually  _made_  pancakes herself before, since the Griffin household isn’t exactly well-stocked with breakfast foods – her mother has a completely different schedule from her most days, so Clarke usually just grabs a banana or something on her way out instead of having breakfast by herself.

So now she’s standing here with her dough-spattered recipe and looking down into the mixing-bowl at a goopy, lumpy, grey mass that does not look like it will ever turn into delicious, fluffy pancakes.

“Another culinary project?” 

Bellamy has suddenly appeared behind her, startlingly quiet, and peers over her shoulder at the mess on the counter. She can just imagine him wrinkling his nose in disgust. “What exactly is that?”

“Pancakes for Octavia.”

There’s a rather long silence after that, which gives Clarke time to wonder how many rude judgmental things he’s trying not to say out loud, while at the same time noticing that he is  standing close enough that she can almost feel him. It’s not the best situation for her already pancake-weakened nerves.

Which is when he decides to step even closer and put his hands over hers.

Her body almost shuts down in shock. There is simply too much to process, and lately, Clarke hasn’t been the best at processing when Bellamy is around.

“You didn’t stir the batter fast enough, that’s why it went lumpy.” That is probably an accurate assessment of where she went wrong (who knows? certainly not her), but all Clarke can focus on right now is the fact that Bellamy’s hands have closed over hers, warm and firm. He only lets go for a few seconds to pour some more milk into the bowl before lowering his hand to hers once more, holding the mixing bowl steady with his left while his right hand gently but firmly guides hers into the correct movement she should have used to mix the batter, an elegant circular motion that soon shows some success at smoothing out the goopy mass. Not only that, but Bellamy’s intervention also shows notable success at making Clarke feel hot and flustered and confused, holding on to the edge of the bowl for dear life and trying to decide if she should wish he’d let go  _right now_  or never again. She can hear him breathing in her ear and feel his body heat behind her, not to mention the heat from his hands on hers, and that thought leads Clarke to thinking that his hands might be much better employed doing things other than repairing her terrible cooking, and she wonders if anyone in the history of breakfast has ever had such wholly inappropriate thoughts about pancake batter.

He must be really determined to turn her failed breakfast project around, because Bellamy stays in place even after the batter looks exactly as smooth as it did in her recipe book, and just as Clarke begins to wonder about that, he must have noticed it too. He lets go of her hands a little too hastily, causing the egg whisk to tip over the side of the bowl and clatter to the floor, an almost deafening sound in the silence of the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s,” Bellamy finds his voice first, although it sounds a little shaky, “that’s really good.” He’s still standing behind her, looking over her shoulder, and then, propelled by something she can’t quite define but will swear never to act upon again a little later, Clarke turns her head to look at him, not really surprised at how close he is, or at how the realisation makes her insides jump.

“Thanks.”

Their eyes lock, and all the enticing imagery Clarke has been enjoying in her head until just now comes smashing back, stealing her breath and replacing it with a heavy, urgent ache deep within her. Her body starts moving of her own accord, her head tilting towards him, ready to close what little distance remains between them… and he swallows hard, steps back and turns away from her.

“You know how the rest of it works, right? You finish those, I’ll set the table.”

Clarke, still reeling from what she’s sure was very close to turning into a kiss, almost drops the mixing bowl and then proceeds to burn the first batch of pancakes because she keeps trying to watch Bellamy surreptitiously as he moves around the kitchen. He looks flushed and his movements are a little jerky and uncoordinated, but he makes determinedly breezy small-talk about the party they’ve planned for Octavia this weekend, so Clarke finds it hard to judge if he’s as much of a mess as she is.

Eventually, after the smell of burned pancakes wakes her from her trance, Clarke remembers that she’s supposed to be preparing a surprise breakfast for her best friend, and resolves to get herself together.

When Octavia comes down a few minutes later, Clarke has succeeded enough to hug her and wish her happy birthday and definitely not stare at Bellamy across the table during breakfast, until he excuses himself and says he has to be at the university early today, to her great relief. Thankfully, Octavia is too distracted by her presents to notice the weird tension between Clarke and her brother, and by the time they have to leave for school, she feels almost in control of herself again.

Just in case though, Clarke finds excuses not to return to the Blakes’ all week before Octavia finally catches on and calls her, sounding treacherously serene in the way she always does before all hell breaks loose.

“So, were you planning on coming over again some time this year or…?”

“I’ve just been to your place three days ago.”

“Precisely. You haven’t been here in three days. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, I’ve just been busy.” Never before has anyone failed so pathetically at trying to sound casual.

“Must have been avoiding my brother that kept you so busy.”

“What are you talking about, O? I’m not…”

“Cut the crap. Something happened between you two, and it’s starting to weird me out.”

“Why, has he said something?” Clarke wants to slam her head against the nearest wall the moment the words leave her mouth. Could she be any more obvious?

Octavia snickers. “Why, is there something  _to_  say?”

“No!”

“He’s been very pointedly not asking about you all week.”

Clarke stays silent, trying to get her fluttering nerves under control, and eventually, Octavia goes from sounding amused to sounding rather worried.

“Clarke, if anything bad happened between you and Bell, you’d tell me, right?”

“No, nothing bad happened. It’s just…” she can’t believe she’s about to actually say this. “I think the potion worked.”

There is silence at the other end of the line for an awfully long time.

“O? You still there?”

“Yeah, sure. Just… processing. So you’re saying your love potion for Lexa worked. But it worked on my brother. And now he’s acting like he’s in love with you.”

“I know it sounds crazy…”

“Just a little bit. Clarke, you know I only suggested making that potion as a kind of… emotional cleansing ritual, right? Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of problems magic can solve, but your pathetic pining over Lexa is not one of them. I just figured it would help you get over her.”

“Well, it did.” It has, actually – she’s barely thought of Lexa these past weeks, and has even stopped trying to catch glimpses of her at school. “But what if in the process, we somehow transferred my “pathetic pining” over to Bellamy?”

“Has he shown any signs of pining?”

“You didn’t notice? He’s been acting weird as hell.”

“Weird how, exactly?”

“He’s been… nice to me. And smiling, and asking how I’ve been…” It does sound a little stupid, put like that, but there’s no way she’s telling O about the pancakes-incident.  

Another long silence, then a sigh. “Clarke, did it occur to you maybe he could just…  _actually_ _like_  you?”

It’s the first time anyone has actually voiced the thought out loud and Clarke panics, hangs up the phone, and throws it off her bed. Where, of course, it starts ringing just a few seconds later. There’s no stopping Octavia from talking about this, apparently, but Clarke very much does  _not_  want to talk about it. She doesn’t even know what to  _think_  about it yet.

She turns her phone on silent and figures that’s that, but she forgot about the one channel of communication still open to her friend, and a second later O’s name pops up in the skype window.

_9:42 pm: really clarke? really._

_9:43 pm: hanging up and then ignoring me. that’s very mature of you._

_9:50 pm: okay, be like that._

_9:50 pm: wait, don’t be like that. What if he_ does _like you? Like.. how would you feel about that?_

_9:53 pm: I swear to god clarke, if you don’t answer your phone or text me back I will come over and knock your door down._

_9:56 pm: I feel like you don’t appreciate it enough that I’m actually willing to talk about this at all. i mean, we’re talking about the possibility that my brother may have a crush on my best friend. that is some traumatic shit, but I am willing to overlook that trauma just to help you, that’s how good  of a friend I am._

_9:57 pm: I am serious about knocking down your door._

_9:58 pm: We have an alarm system. Don’t try to knock down the door._

_10:00 pm: But just in case you still want to come over and destroy our door: the idea may not be completely revolting._

_10:00 pm: asdfghjkl_

_10:01 pm: are you serious???_

_10:02 pm: I mean, this is Bellamy we’re talking about, the world’s premier grumpy asshole. you have_  met  _him, right? you’re sure about this?_

_10:02 pm: No, I’m not sure about this! I’M NOT SURE ABOUT ANYTHING ANYMORE!!!_

_10:03 pm: calm down dramallama, no need to start yelling. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. you said it yourself, Bell’s being_ nice _to you all of a sudden. who knows, this might turn out to be a blessing for us all. and if not… I mean, it’s not like one of the two people I care about most in the world could get hurt in this…_

_10:04 pm: okay, I’m sorry I said that. seriously, clarke, it’s not that big of a deal. if he really has a crush on you and you don’t feel the same, just tell him, or steer clear of him until he gets the message, and I’m sure this will all be over soon. he’s a big boy, he’ll get over it._

_10:06 pm: clarke?_

_10:09 pm: clarke? I really was kidding about people getting hurt. It’s just a silly little crush, if it’s even anything at all. you’re not, like, Romeo and Juliet. everything will be fine._

_10:11 pm: I think I have to go lie down._

_10:12 pm: you do that, honey. everything looks a lot easier after a good night’s sleep. don’t worry, okay? Love you!_

_10:48 pm: you’re still coming to my b-day party, right?_

_10:52 pm: I’m pretty sure I’m in charge of about 80 percent of that party, so yes, I’m coming._

_10:53 pm: good_

_10:53 pm: Bellamy will probably be holed up in his room anyway, don’t worry._

_10:57 pm: Just so you know though, you have my blessing._

_11:02 pm: I’m sleeping._

 

She doesn’t sleep, of course, not for a very long time, because there’s one thing Octavia said that got stuck in her head, where it’s being replayed over and over again:  _he could just actually like you_.

* * *

Clarke still has not decided what to think, let alone do, about the whole Bellamy-situation when she arrives at the Blakes’ the next day carrying a giant box of party decorations. Luckily, she only ever catches short glimpses of Bellamy as he and Lincoln move around furniture and start setting up a table for food and drinks while Clarke and Octavia are busy hanging up streamers and garlands and the giant “Happy Birthday O”-sign that Clarke painted.

By the time the first guests arrive and Clarke and Octavia return from getting changed in O’s room, Bellamy is nowhere in sight, having probably retreated to his room to avoid the impending chaos. For a second, Clarke feels disappointed – she’s wearing her one really hot, low-cut top, and considering the way Bellamy has looked at her lately even in her normal, not at all sexy clothes, she’s just curious to see the kind of reaction her party get-up would get her. But she catches herself midway through that line of thinking and once more resolves to at least  _try_  to not obsess over Bellamy for one night. Honestly, she’s acting like she’s the one who overdosed on love potion.

Pushing thoughts of Bellamy aside to the best of her ability, Clarke tries to just have fun. This is Octavia’s night, and it would be unfair to ruin the mood by brooding about her personal emotional mess. She joins Octavia in a sing star medley of O’s favourite songs, beats Monty at impromptu ping pong around the kitchen table, and generally has a blast. She even talks to Lexa, who apparently knows Lincoln via a friend of a friend and just shows up randomly at some point and asks her if there’s any beer. (There isn’t. Octavia wanted to smuggle in beer, or at least spike the punch, but since this is Bellamy’s house and he could get in trouble for letting them drink alcohol here, Clarke has put her foot down on the issue.)

And now here she is, casually chatting with Lexa and trying not to laugh about the fact that, now that Clarke has lost interest in the other girl, she’s finally noticing her. The entire situation is ridiculous, but the sudden absence of the familiar yearning she used to feel around Lexa, and the knowledge that, in different company, she still gets that same feeling, is more than a little disorienting. Ending the conversation just as it starts to turn flirty, Clarke slips out the backdoor into the garden, only to almost fall over Bellamy who’s sitting on the porch steps.

She catches herself on his shoulders before tumbling off the porch, and Bellamy looks up and breaks into a smile the moment he sees her, immediately triggering that annoying flutter that she’s been feeling around him lately. (Yeah, she knows what that means, she’s not an idiot, but denial is as good an emotional state to be in as any.) She quickly lets go of him and straightens up again, which marginally calms the butterflies in her stomach, and wonders if there’s any subtle way to flee back inside again. But Bellamy is already scooching to the side and patting the deck beside him to tell her to sit down, and yes, she’s a weak, terrible person, but Clarke follows his invitation, suppressing a shiver when their skin meets where her arm now rests against his.

“What brings you out here then? Needed a break from all the flirting?”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“Maybe you weren’t, but that other girl sure was.”

And now Clarke finally lets out the laughter she’s been holding in since Lexa not-so-casually touched her arm and she understood what was happening. Bellamy looks a little confused by this though, so she curbs her mirth and explains.

“That girl, Lexa – I had the biggest crush on her for ages, and she never noticed me.”

“Well, she definitely noticed you tonight. Which is no surprise, really – you look very noticeable.”

His eyes briefly slip down to her cleavage at the words, and Clarke has to keep from punching the air in triumph. It seems like Lexa wasn’t the only one to notice her tonight – not that Bellamy hasn’t been noticing her for a while now.

She forces herself to play it cool even though this is without a doubt a very weird conversation.

“But the thing is, now that she finally did, I realized that I’m finally over her. Isn’t that ironic?”

He flinches. “Actually, that’s not what ironic means…”

Clarke rolls her eyes. She should have known he’d say that – his stance on that particular word and its popular misuses is well-known. “Yes, yes, I know. But you know what I mean, right?”

He only nods in reply, waiting if she wants to say more, but she doesn’t really – the subject of Lexa feels very neatly closed suddenly, and there are other things she’d much prefer talking about, like the fact that the side of her body that is pressed up against Bellamy is practically tingling. Or the fact that just seeing him out here made her a million times happier than any of Lexa’s seductive smiles. Or the discovery that, apparently, it is possible to miss someone if you haven’t seen them for as little as three days. Now if only she had a good transition into those questions… “Have you ever been really sure how you felt about someone until suddenly you weren’t anymore?”

He laughs softly. “You have no idea.”

This reply, coupled with the way he holds her eyes, suddenly intense and serious again, tells Clarke that they’re definitely not talking about Lexa anymore.

“Clarke, I…”

She should really wait what he has to say, but then he lays his hand on her knee, sending a bolt of electricity through her already tense body, and Clarke decides to throw caution to the wind, just assume they’re on the same page, and find out what he wanted to say afterwards.

She puts her hand over his on her knee, fingers curling around his, and watches his eyes widen as he looks at her. And then she doesn’t even know who moves first, but suddenly they’re kissing and his hand around her waist pulls her as close as possible. His lips are full and soft, which obviously, she knew from staring at them for weeks now, but it’s still something else entirely to feel them pressed against her, a little clumsily until he tilts his head and changes the angle, allowing his lips to slide smoothly against hers with just enough friction to make her sigh against his mouth, and she thinks she could stay like this forever, with their hands still tangled together on her knee and his hair soft under her free hand, because secretly, Clarke has always wanted to know what it feels like to run her hands through those messy curls and she’s not going to pass up this opportunity.

As glorious as it feels, however, Clarke is also aware of how surreal, the entire situation is, and she suddenly imagines her reaction if someone had told her a few weeks ago that she’d be kissing Bellamy Blake on the porch stairs and really, really liking it. And then she remembers the events that lead to this, and against all logic and reason, the niggling fear that somehow this is still all just because of Octavia’s potion returns with a vengeance.

“Stop!” Bellamy lets go of her immediately, looking alarmed.

“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted…” He looks crushed, and Clarke hastens to reassure him.

“I do, but  _you_  don’t want this! If it wasn’t for Octavia and her stupid potion, you would never even look at me, let alone  _kiss_  me!”

She is well aware how ridiculous she sounds, but Clarke still can’t stop from getting slightly hysterical about the nightmarish thought that somehow this really is all due to the potion. Because without really noticing, she’s become so used to having him look at her like she’s the only girl in the world, of having him close enough that she can just reach out and touch him, and of catching herself wanting to do just that more and more often.

His response is immediate and sure: “I would.”

He really means it, and God how she wishes it was true. “No, you wouldn’t. Because apparently we live in a world where Octavia is a witch and we accidentally poisoned you and now you think you’re in love with me but you’re not and I’m so very, very sorry I put you through this unpleasantness.”

After this rushed confession, he stays silent for a long moment, just staring at her, and Clarke is getting more and more panicked. Is he going to be angry now? But his voice when he replies is calm but serious.

“I am very disappointed in you. As a future doctor, I would not have expected you to be so superstitious. Really Clarke,  _magic_?”

Clarke is still struggling to interpret the amused twitch of his lips when he continues, driving the point home: “I really hope you learned your lesson about letting Octavia drag you into poisoning innocent bystanders.”

And finally it all makes sense.

“ _You_   _knew_?”

“O told me. I spent the entire night vomiting up your horrid potion, it was the least she could do for me.”

“So this is your revenge?”

He nods, satisfied, and she punches his arm in an attempt to release some of her worried tension.

“You asshole! I was so worried that the stupid potion had actually worked!”

“Would that have been a bad thing?”

“Yes!”

He draws back as if she had pushed him again, the smile sliding off his face, and Clarke hastens to repair the damage.

“Because it would have been wrong. It wouldn’t have been your choice,” she explains slowly, and surely now that she has spelled it out for him he’ll finally understand why what she did was wrong and he should be angry at her instead of amused.

But Bellamy shows no sign of getting angry; his eyes remain soft and fixed on her. 

“I don’t think it was really my choice either way. I think you gravely overestimate the “unpleasantness” of flirting with you.”

“So you did all that just to mess with my head?” The thought is sickening, and Clarke draws back in preparation of the impending crushing rejection.

“Only for a little bit, at first.” He has the grace to look apologetic, but Clarke is not appeased yet. She can’t believe he actually let her believe that she bewitched him, and that her best friend was in on it.

“You’re an asshole!”

“And you’re a terrible witch. We all have our faults.” He snatches her hand out of the air before she can punch his arm again, and the way he softly cradles it in his goes a long way to making her anger evaporate. “But just so you know, I didn’t plan for it to go this far. I just wanted to freak you out a little. But at some point, I just couldn’t bring myself to stop. And now I don’t ever want to.”

That’s… quite a declaration, Clarke thinks, still a little dizzy from the emotional rollercoaster that is this evening, and her mind latches on to the most irrelevant detail in its muddled state.

“You’ll have to, I’m leaving for college at the end of summer. “ It’s stupid to be even thinking about that right now, she knows. Her departure is weeks away, and they’ve literally  _just_  had their first kiss. Who knows if they even make it to the end of summer? But there’s something in his eyes that tells her they just might.

“Well, you’re only leaving for the west coast, not outer mongolia or something.” He grins. “Besides, if you miss me too much, you can always hop on your broomstick and fly back home.”

“You’re never going to let me live down the magic potion thing, are you?”

“Never!” There’s that smirk again, still as irksome as ever, but when he leans in for another kiss, Clarke finds that she doesn’t really mind it that much anymore.

Their lips are almost touching when there arefoot steps on the wooden porch behind them, followed by a sort of strangled squeak, and they jump apart.

Clearly, judging by the look on Octavia’s face, they were too slow. O’s expression goes from someone who’s just seen a ghost to an uncanny imitation of the Cheshire cat, before she chirps: “Sorry guys, don’t mind me”, and backs into the house again.

They exchange a puzzled look – it’s really not like Octavia to be this discreet – but don’t really care about it either way, too wrapped up in each other and the prospect of more kissing. But before they can get as far, the music coming from inside the house stops and switches abruptly, the pounding bass of a rap song replaced by guitars and drums and a light, upbeat rhythm, soon joined by a man singing:

“ _Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart?”_

Clarke groans and buries her head in her hands, too embarrassed to even look at Bellamy. Feeling him shaking with laughter beside her, she promptly starts planning how to get Octavia to pay for this. But Bellamy puts his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close.

“I’m sorry. Subtlety is not a Blake family trait.”

Even through her embarrassment, Clarke can’t help but look up at him and smile. “Definitely not.”

They sit there for a few seconds just grinning at each other, until Bellamy abruptly gets to his feet and holds out a hand to her.

“Come on. Now that I’m apparently attending this party, I might as well dance.”

And dance they do, twirling around on the grass and smiling like lunatics until the song fades out and Clarke quickly pulls Bellamy behind the apple tree. She’s sure Octavia will soon make a repeat appearance to gloat, and honestly, Clarke would rather not have any witnesses when she continues experiencing the wonder that is kissing Bellamy.

They don’t go back inside for a very long time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished! This part took ages to write, and I still don't even know if I like it.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Little Mix's "Black Magic" (quoted at the top), and this happened. First posted on tumblr.


End file.
